And Then There Were 5

Today was supposed to be the new baby's birthday. He has apparently inherited my impatient gene. Instead of waiting 12 hours, letting us get a good night's sleep, and sticking to the plan, he sent Lydianne into labor on 8/31.

She had taken the day off, so she was at home when contractions started around 4pm. I went to the doctor to try to clear up poison ivy, so I wasn't home. By 6pm they were going pretty good, but I just stopped in to check on her, then was out again to go get my prescription. When I came home about 7:15pm, it was on. By 8 she said if they hadn't stopped by 9pm we needed to go to the hospital. Well, this past weekend she was feeling them pretty good and then they stopped, but since we were going in for the c-section in the morning, I figured I'd go ahead and finish packing the bag. I called Drew to let her know we were likely heading into the hospital and that we were going to be dropping the kids at the house. I could tell these contractions were stronger than anything yet, and they showed no sign of stopping. I then packed everything up and loaded it into the van. I woke my sleeping kids up and set them on the couch where they sat pretty dazed.

Once I arrived at Sylvia's I realized I left the kids' bag back home. I knew we needed to get to the hospital, so I just figured we'd work that out in the morning. Called the doctor, told her we were on our way, and then raced to Baylor.

We arrived and told them that we wanted to see if Lydianne was dilated. She was at 5cm, but it made no difference, we still were heading to surgery. The anesthesiologist poked her 3 times to get an IV, so that was frustrating for her, but after that, they wasted no time and wheeled her off.

They told me I would wait 10 minutes in the hall and then I could come in. So about 30 minutes later I was able to come in. That was a lonely 30 minutes.

Surgery went great. They pulled my 10 pound 8oz boy out and had to suction him because he was
grunting.

Because he was so big, they were worried about his blood sugar, and then with the grunting they were worried about his breathing, so they decided to take him to the NICU.

Our birth plan specified that if that is where he needed to go, I was to go with him. I have no idea what I was supposed to do up there, but I followed. I felt like I was in the way, but the nurses were so great. I just stood there and watched as they did stuff to him. Then they put a nasal cranula on him and dosed him with 30% oxygen. They said they needed to watch him for 4 hours. Since there was nothing else for me to do and I knew Lydianne was downstairs probably freaking out a little all alone, I decided to go back down there.

I walked in and was happy to see she had the sweet L&D nurse with her. I thought she was great. She kept her company and answered questions, and if we sounded anxious about anything, she got right on the phone and had someone come talk to us. Someone from the NICU came down and told us that he would have to stay up there for 24 hours for observation. We decided a while back that we would wait until we spent some time with him before naming him, and since we didn't get to do that, he remains nameless.

We went up to our room, eventually, and attempted to sleep between the barrage of nurses and staff that came into the room every 10-15 minutes. I went this morning to see him and they let me hold him for over an hour.

I feel a constant need to go back and tell Lydianne that everything is ok, and I don't want to miss anything the doctors/nurses tell her, so I left him. I also wanted to call everyone and return emails/texts, so I went downstairs.

I was able to feed him a bottle a little bit ago, and once Lydianne can tolerate sitting up in the wheelchair, she can start nursing him. Oh, and my good friend Brittany saved the day by running to my house and getting the kids' bag and taking it to Sylvia's house for us.

It's hard to be away from family, but it sure is wonderful having adopted Texas family to help us out. We are grateful for the well wishes and prayers and offers to help. Not having him in here with us is hard, but sitting in the NICU and seeing those other sweet babies and knowing my giant baby only needs a little oxygen to get better sure makes me grateful to my Heavenly Father for the blessings in my life.